Federal and state environmental regulations mandate that concrete washed from concrete pumps and concrete mixers must be contained for safe disposal. The chutes and hoppers must have residual concrete cleaned and removed from the surfaces upon which the concrete adheres to prevent the residual concrete from hardening within the equipment thereby damaging the equipment. Additionally, washed out concrete cannot be haphazardly disposed of into the environment. Therefore there exists a need for a concrete containment apparatus and method that efficiently isolates the residual concrete from concrete hoppers and mixers, including concrete trucks used in the delivery of concrete.
The use of hay bales and plastic to isolate washout concrete is well known. A perimeter of hay bales with or without a plastic film liner is provided, creating a volume within which washout concrete is poured, preventing the washout concrete from escaping into the environment. Once the concrete dries, it can be removed and properly disposed. However, the variability in height of hay bales creates difficulty in appropriately locating a concrete mixer such that the washout concrete chute properly overlies the volume within which the washout concrete is to be poured. Ramps have been combined with the hay bales to orient the concrete pumping apparatus but again the relative positions of the concrete pumping apparatus and the height of the ramps is unacceptably variant.
Containers for washout concrete are known, however the containers are not sized to efficiently underlie the concrete pump. Frequently the rear end of the concrete pumping apparatus will be too low and the container will interfere with the concrete pump. In order to compensate, the concrete mixer is backed onto ramps to raise the concrete pump above the washout containment container. This creates yet another problem because the inherent weight of the concrete mixing machinery frequently exceeds 60,000-80,000 pounds. As a result many concrete companies do not allow the use of ramps.